As is always the case, Thursday rolls around and the chat threads start lighting up with queries and suggestions on what the crew’s plans are for the weekend. This weekend was no different. The southern Hidaka Range…Rako-dake Hut…Kariba-yama…Oputateshike-yama…all of them high alpine objectives that we were all keen to tick off at some point. The weather wasn’t looking great for alpine objectives though. High winds here, low cloud there…
“How about we just go to Horokanai and do powder laps until our legs fall off,” I suggested.
No, there wouldn’t be the glory of tagging some far-off high peak. But this was still powder season, so why not ski powder? When we live in Hokkaido, it’s sometimes easy to take the low-altitude cold smoke for granted. But if it’s there, it’s only fair one skis it.
Indeed, the weather forecast for the Horokanai area was showing consistently cold temperatures for about a week leading up to the weekend, with plenty of snow too.
Initially, Fuyuji-yama wasn’t on our radar for the weekend. Bozu-yama was though, and that was the original plan for Sunday. But as we pored over maps after our onsen on Saturday night, Fuyuji-yama piqued my interest. A quick look at the heatmap on Yamareco.com suggested it was a popular peak for backcountry skiing, so we decided to check it out the next day. The eastern slopes in particular on the topomap looked steeper and longer than Bozu-yama.
We arrived at the parking bay on Route 72 at around 8am, and kitted up. It was another cold start, but it was calm. About 20cm of fresh, dry powder had fallen overnight.
We started off by walking up the road a bit, but soon donned skis, climbed up the snow banks, and skinned up through the forest.
On the climber’s left of the main ridge, there were short slopes that looked fantastic for skiing. It was all we could do to resist the urge just to ski those slopes. Likewise, as the main ridge hit the main western face of the summit, a beautiful untracked slope opened up in front of us.
“The snow’s probably better on the eastern side,” offered Gavin.
Indeed, this western slope had fresh cold-smoke snow, but overall the snowpack felt more dense.
The summit came quickly after that. A simple, faded sign tied to a tree.
At the summit, we spent a few minutes in silence, each of us poring over the maps on our phone, trying to figure out where we should ski.
Note ‘should‘ rather than ‘could‘ ski.
The entire eastern face looked like a smorgasbord of terrain. We could lap all day today and tomorrow and the next day and not track the place out. In the end, I could sense analysis paralysis setting in, so I suggested we just ski a run to get a feel for the terrain and go from there.
Skiing the fall line as far as we could, that first run was bliss.
The slopes were mellow, but plenty steep enough and more importantly, deep enough, to have a very good time. We skied as far as the slope would allow us, down into the mess of gullies and spurs.
We then started the job of setting a good skin track for another three runs – a total of four laps for a cumulative climb for the day of just over 1,300m.
The following three laps were just as good.
At some point, Tim realized he had lost his smartphone from his pocket, and a gaggle os snowmobilers braaaaped their way along the summit ridge, so that put a bit of a damper on proceedings, but otherwise, all was good.
For the descent down the western side back to the cars from the summit, we opted to try to do a traversing descent down the skier’s left of the flat approach ridge. This worked well, as we courageously resisted the urge to just ski the fall line into the gully bottom.
Fuyuji-yama was new to us, but it feels like it might become a new favourite zone in the Horokanai area.
Check out the GoPro footage from Tim’s helmet below for a feel for the laps.
